


If Your Life Had a Face, I Would Punch It

by Leidolette



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Dream Bubble, F/M, Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-19
Updated: 2012-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-05 16:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave finally gets a chance to hang out with Jade in a dream bubble. It really, <i>really</i> does not go as expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Your Life Had a Face, I Would Punch It

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is also at the kinkmeme, in response to [this prompt.](http://homesmut.livejournal.com/15949.html?thread=33417293#t33417293)

Dream bubbles are finicky bitches that exist just to make your life worse.

This time you’re alerted to the incoming Dali-esque hootenanny by Terezi's teal text flashing at the corner of your screen as you mess around on one of the gross troll grub-computers. You'd been clicking on random icons for the last ten minutes in the hopes of finding some sort of game. Troll minesweeper or solitaire, maybe. Okay, perhaps the chances of solitaire are pretty slim since all the diamonds and clubs and hearts and spades might be too much for their delicate troll sensibilities or some shit. Ugh, quadrants. You've heard way to much about this stuff lately. 

Anyways, your fruitless search is interrupted by this:  
 **  
GC: 3V3RYBODY!  
GC: 1 DONT KNOW WHY 1T 1S TH4T TH3 BL1ND G1RL 1S TH3 ON3 K33P1NG W4TCH FOR DR34M BUBBL3S BUT L1ST3N UP  
GC: W3 H4V3 4NOTH3R ON3 ON TH3 W4Y YOU KNOW TH3 ROUT1N3   
**  
You rub the bridge of your nose, right under your shades. Okay, looks like it's time for some mindfuck of a waking dream sequence starring some strange trolls in anime cosplay. Shit's about to get all magical girl up in here. Dream bubbles are definitely not what you thought they'd be. You never seem to see John or Jade, for whatever reason, and the trolls that do show up are weird alternate versions of themselves that don't seem to be too interested in you. It's more like watching a movie with familiar characters than having an actual encounter. You haven't even seen a doomed Dave, and you know there must be dozens of them floating around out there somewhere.

On the other hand, maybe that's a good thing. Honestly, the thought that your role in the game session was built on the backs of dead Daves makes you uncomfortable, and you are a little relieved that you haven't had to talk to one yet. You turn this thought over in your brain for a while as you make your way up to the top of the tower. 

You are not the first to arrive. Looks like everyone else is already there (well, except for Gamzee but who the fuck even knows where that guy is, and you forget about him half the time anyways). Karkat is acting more peevish than usual which probably means he's nervous, and while Terezi isn't acting in a remotely similar matter because she's not a dumbass, you think she might be too, presumably for Vriska related reasons. From what you can gather, everything between those two is painful and complicated. You and Terezi are pretty close, but despite all the time you've spent together on can-based urban planning and elaborate courtroom murder-dramas, she's always been tight-lipped on the subject. You leave her to her introspection and glance in the other direction. Kanaya's leaning her hip against a table and has on a pretty good poker face. Rose gives you a slight smile in greeting when she sees you. You guess she must feel the same way you do: interested, but ultimately unaffected. 

All of your eyes are drawn to the starfield overhead. The dream bubble grows larger and larger in the distance. It's a pleasing light green color. Have you entered a bubble of this shade before? Meh, you don't remember. 

The meteor enters the dream bubble with a pop and immediately the scenery starts getting weird. Normal space melts away and is replaced with a momentary swirling mess that gives you a nasty case of temporary vertigo before it begins to coalesce into something semi-logical. 

At first it is just the outline of things; colors and lines. It resolves itself in a high vaulted stone cavern. The whole room is dim and still and cold; you get the distinct feeling that you are far underground. The walls are covered in etchings of vines and frogs. At the top of the cavern, in the very center of the ceiling, is a large, blooming, four-pointed flower that seems to be lit from within by some sort of bioluminescence. It seems to be the only source of light and it colors everything a slight bottle green. The softly glowing light ripples and mixes slowly through the giant petals and gives you the impression of a calm body of water. Your shadow sways along the wall behind you.

All in all, the place is pretty damn swank.

You turn your back on the main cavern and check out the carvings on the wall. Yep, this is definitely Jade's Land; there's picture after picture of frozen frogs and drifting snowflakes, with an occasional hummingbird to spice things up. Towards the top you can just make out the outline of an erupting volcano. You are trying not to think about what a bad omen that fucking thing was last time you saw it when you hear Karkat start to make a fuss behind you.

You turn around and it quickly becomes obvious what Karkat was yelling about; even you get your own jolt of surprise. There's Jade Harley herself, mostly turned away from you and on the other side of the cavern, but most definitely her.

"You're kidding me! I know the universe is shitting me right now. It's been over half a sweep and NOW she decides to show up?"

But despite his crotchety tone he actually sounds excited. Oh yeah, you forgot about that troll crush he had on Jade. Auspitice crush? Regular crush? Ugh, again with the overly complicated romance hoofbeastshit -- you mean horseshit. Man, this troll stuff is really getting to you.

But you can't roll your eyes too much at him because honestly, you're pretty excited as well. You've been waiting to meet up with John or Jade in one of these bubbles for a while now. You glance over at Rose and she has her hood off and is craning her neck over in Jade's direction too. Guess you won't have to wait three years after all.

She's angled slightly away from your group, but you can see her head turning a little; she seems like she's looking for something. You wonder what memory she used as an entry point to the bubble. She's got on her black and green evening gown getup that she wore during all that time you two spent hunting frogs in the snowy forests of the Land of Frost and Frogs, so that might be it. Who even knows why she chose something that fancy, but she pulled it off pretty well. 

...And she's actually _still_ pulling it off really well. The black of her dress catches the gentle light from the flower-lamp just right, and you swear you can see twinkling galaxies deep in the fabric. The light falls on her dark hair in wonderful ways; it adds to her hair’s natural wildness and you are left with the impression of something fierce and graceful. It glows on her skin; you follow the green from her hands to her arms to her bare shoulders-

"Well look who took her sweet time prancing her way to the dream bubbles. I hope you are absolutely fucking dying to hear about what an asshole my future self will be and how much of a dumbass my past self was, because those definitely did not stop being things while you were gone! Those two astounding shitheads will just not stop.”

You're kind of annoyed that he gets to shout his swear filled greeting-rant at her before you even get a chance to send off a super chill "yo". No one should subjected to a bucket full of Karkat drivel to the face all at once after being blissfully free of it for over a year. Gotta ease into that shit. Wait -- that imagery was probably really dirty. Somehow. You still aren't up to speed on gross Troll porn, and fuck your malfunctioning brain if you think you're going to wade through pages of "her fiery oculars raked over his glistening body" and "she ripped off her matesprit's satin bodice that had constrained her heaving thoracic cage" in some Troll Harlequin just to figure everything out.

And, childishly, you just want to talk to her first.

But Jade doesn't seem to be reacting to Karkat's words, which is sort of amazing seeing as they're loud enough to still be echoing back and forth between the cavern walls. Karkat looks super pissed at being ignored and you see his fists clench and his chest expand as he takes an absolutely huge breath (oh my god, he is just going to try to shout her into becoming his best friend, isn't he?). Before anything extra stupid can happen, however, he is interrupted by a clattering somewhere down the hallway behind her, not made by anyone in your group, and her head turns toward the sound. Her face flashes full-on in your direction for just a moment, and that's when you see it. 

Jades eyes are large and luminous and pure, pure white. 

Shit. 

You hear Rose's muffled sound of surprise from behind you and at the same time all the air wheezes out of Karkat's lungs with a sound like a leaky air mattress. Feels like you got some ice water in your veins for a moment and your muscles tense up like there's going to be a fight, but then your brain kicks in and starts feeding you answers and filling in blanks: this is obviously a doomed Jade and this is a dream bubble of an alternate timeline. This isn't "your" Jade. And you feel better. 

A little. 

You’re still staring like an idiot at Jade’s blank eyes when the clattering sound from earlier increases in volume. After a moment you are surprised by the sight of an alternate version of yourself emerging from a downward-leading tunnel. His arm is sticking out to the side and he's dragging the jagged point of his half-swordkind along the stone wall. The sound is absolutely grating. You can't see anything behind his shades but you figure his eyes must be as lit up as a party store at midnight.

When the other you gets closer you see that something is up with one of his arms. Jade must notice the same time as you because she frowns and hurries towards him through the green-tinted twilight. 

"Hey there, mister! Are you okay? I've been looking all over for you!" She sounds just the way you remember and it trips up your thoughts for a moment. It's okay, you recover by turning the mental stumble into a sweet Youth Roll.

Your other self doesn't seem tripped up at all, though. In fact, he doesn't acknowledge that she's even spoken, just keeps walking forward and dragging his sword behind him. Jade finally reaches him and puts out a hand to his shoulder to stop him. He finally seems to realize that she's there and his head turns towards her, his face washed out and blank.

"Um, Dave?" she seems unsure now, "Can I see your arm please?"

He stares at her. Or at least you’re pretty sure he's staring at her. Half of his face is covered by his/your ever present shades and wow, is it annoying to not be able to read your own face. Anyways, after a moment he sticks his non-sword arm out in Jade's general direction and she gingerly takes it. His forearm is red and swollen; there is a strange pattern of what looks to be tiny puncture wounds from the elbow to the wrist. Some of the wounds have dots of clear liquid rising from them.

"Oooooooh Dave," Jade says, wincing and ghosting her hand over the skin, "this does not look so great! Let's go back to my house, I have a lot of medical supplies. Some of it is pretty old, but I have a feeling you might like the pain medici-"

"I don't feel so good," these are the first words out of your doomed-self's mouth, and they are not promising. Besides the weirdness of listening to yourself have a conversation with Jade, you notice that the words sound kind of slurred.

Jade looks really worried now, "I know. We should go back to my-"

"Something bit me."

"Dave, we need to go back," he's not moving so she puts a light hand on his back guide him in the direction of the ascending tunnel. He jerks back hard and is suddenly a couple steps away. You narrow your eyes; that almost looked like a flash-step. Can this guy flash-step?

"Shut up," your double says and the sharpness in his voice takes you aback. His words have lost that slurred, vague quality from earlier and are now clear and angry. 

Jade must be as shocked as you feel because she just looks at him, eyes wide. Despite being completely blank, they seem very expressive to you now.

"You don't know anything, alright little jungle girl? You thought you saw everything up there in those magic, Candy Land clouds of yours. But did you see all those dead Daves, huh? Did you see all those doomed timelines where God, the universe, and Morgan Freeman just went 'lol nope' and shunted us all into some dead end existence to die? Those clouds weren't on our side then and they sure as fuck ain't on our side now."

Jade's angry now, "Dave, you are hurt and you are being mean! This is not a doomed timeline and you need to come back to the house with me! Your arm-"

"You so sure about that, Jade? You completely sure this isn't a doomed timeline? On a scale of one to James Bond, how confident are you?" The hairs on the back of your neck stand up. He sounds venomous. Dangerous. Your brain is screaming at you that something is _wrong wrong wrong!_

Jade opens her mouth to respond and in an instant he has his sword drawn back. You're already moving, but it's far, _far_ too late and he plunges it deep into her abdomen, right below her ribs. Her body convulses around the blade and her hands fly to the point of entry. 

"How sure are you now that everything is going to turn out just fine?" he hisses right in her face as he holds her up, impaled on his own sword.

A cacophony of yelling breaks out behind you but you ignore it because you've finally reached them. Your own sword is in your hand and you don't hesitate as you leap towards your alternate self and strike right at his very familiar sneering face-

-only to land hard on the other side of him and Jade. What the fuck? You missed? You turn around and go after him again, right at his chest this time - can't miss. This time you see your sword pass straight through his body; not cutting, just passing through it as if he were nothing more than smoke. Neither he nor Jade pay you any attention, it’s as if you aren’t there at all.

Apparently you are not allowed to mess with the events in this dream bubble. You hold your next swing when the futility of your actions sinks in.

But then he twists the sword that he's skewered Jade on and her face scrunches up in the purest agony but she hardly makes a sound, like it would hurt too much to even scream, and you're slashing at him again in an instant. Maybe one of these blows will land, maybe one will stop this horrorshow, maybe-

Then Rose is by your side, her hand on your shoulder and her grip is tight. "It's only a memory. This is not happening. Calm down."

The very idea of calming down is such a joke to you right now that you feel like it could become the go-to punch line for every page in Colonel Sassacre's Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery. You close your eyes and try to block out everything that is happening around you. You try to forget where you are and just concentrate on the pressure of Rose's hand and her litany of reassurances that wash over you. It would probably work a little better if you couldn't detect the shaking in her voice.

You can hear Jade crying now.

Oh god why can't this dream bubble end.

You can't ignore it. And you feel like a coward for trying. If you can't save this Jade then at least you can acknowledge her pain. You can grieve for her. You open your eyes and look back at her face and the sight is involuntarily seared into your long-term memory. You wish you could rewind time to before you even existed.

Then out of the corner of your eye you see something. The sword in Jade’s solar plexus is still holding her up in a mockery of the standing position even as her knees buckle, but behind her back there is a flash of light as she summons her rifle to her hand. It slips a little in her blood-slick fingers, but she manages to get a grip and brings the heavy barrel up one handed to point towards his face. It’s a slower, clumsier movement than usual – nothing like the deadly accurate motion you remember. Still, your heart leaps in your chest. _C’mon Jade c’mon just blow that fucker away doesn’t matter how familiar his face is just get him off of you and get out of there…_

He knocks the rifle away with his free hand and the shot goes wild over his shoulder instead of through his forehead. He pries it out of her hand and tosses it to the side. The arm that was bitten looks even worse now; black streaks meander under his skin and run up his bicep to disappear beneath his shirt. Jade turns her head away when the rifle smashes to ground across the cavern.

"No it's okay," the other Dave says to Jade, and suddenly it seems that all the rage is gone and his voice has taken on that gentle tone that you know sometimes creeps into your words when you talk to her (any other time you'd be embarrassed about it but, Jesus, it would be impossible to count the number of shits you don't give at the moment) “this is a doomed timeline. It doesn't matter. None of this matters."

And you wish you hadn't spent so much time _noticing_ her earlier, because when he lays his hand ever so gently along her collar bone you know exactly what he's thinking. He strokes along her skin and brushes some of her long hair back behind her shoulder. His hand goes lower and you swear you can feel your vision tunneling out from sheer rage and helplessness. His palm traces down her side; the very outside of her breast, over her ribs, the dip of her waist, and then rests on her hip. He leans forward and gives her a gentle kiss on the lips like he has permission, like this is somehow a tender situation. You want to strangle him so badly you're shaking.

Jade doesn't have much room on her face to express any emotion besides the excruciating pain she's in, but you think you can see a raw, animal anger in her eyes. Looking at her face feels like cutting your own chest open.

"None of this fucking matters," he says again when he finally pulls back, "not even you," with that he lets go of the sword and Jade, unsupported, falls. 

Her head cracks against the stone floor unbearably hard. The whole cavern shakes when her head hits, the ground and the scenery itself begins to subtlety shift colors and drift in and out of focus. You are reminded of one of your cameras, the one with the broken automatic focus that switches between the background and the foreground over and over again until you feel queasy. Strangely, the other Dave is blurring too while the alternate Jade is still crisp and perfect. That's when you realize.

This is her memory.

That's why you couldn't do jackshit to the other Dave. He wasn't real, even by the lax standards of dream bubble reality. You're a dumbass and again you've made the mistake of jumping into the ill-fitting role of protector when instead you should have been concentrating on Jade the whole time. She is the only thing in this whole damn place that is real. 

You shake off Rose's hand and go to kneel by Jade, your hand hovering over her shoulder for fear of startling her with your touch -- of course you look exactly like him. Your heart is beating so hard and you are filled with shaky adrenaline, and it can do nothing for you or for her because this is only a dream of a memory from an alternate timeline. It has long been recorded and long been erased. And still there is nothing you want more at this moment than to help this doomed Jade. You just want to fix this. You just want-

"Dave?"

Your eyes snap to her face, and for the first time since this fucked-up memory began her face is turned directly towards yours and it seems like she is registering your presence. Jade's hand lifts slowly from the floor and wraps around yours and you stare at her blank white eyes and your heart feels like a drowning thing. All you want to do is apologize over and over and over forever. 

She gently squeezes your hand.

The dream bubble gives one last shudder, and then the weight of her hand is gone. The cavern walls flow into little points of light. Finally, finally, the dream bubble dissipates and the whole meteor is back in normal space where horrible things that never even happened aren't bandied in front of your eyes like some stomach-churning ribbon dancer. There is an unbelievably strained silence cast over the observation tower in the moments that it takes to readjust to the familiar grey surroundings.

You stare at the spot on the floor where the alternate Jade was lying just seconds before. You don't want to look at anyone else in the room, but you can't put it off forever. You numbly rise from your kneeling position and school your face into its best approximation of a blank wall, then you turn towards the group.

Everybody is staring at you.

Karkat is the one who first breaks the silence. "What. the. fuck. was. that." he snarls with each word enunciated for maximum savageness. "Seriously, what the fuck did I just see? Strider, can you use your rotten food chute to explain anything about what happened?" He's looking at you with something horribly close to suspicion. You can't even bring yourself to hold that against him. 

"Karkat! Be quiet right now!" Terezi's scratchy voice is infinitely preferable to Karkat's, but you don't think you can stand to face her either. Or anyone.

Terezi is making her way over to you very quickly and you only have a couple seconds to abscond if that is your choice. It is. You abscond right the fuck out of there. You use some of your eXtreme parkour skills to jam your way over to the nearest trasportalizer, pick some random destination, hit the 'enter' button, and you're out of there. 

Part of you knows that your problem solving methods are for shit. Talking to Terezi would almost certainly help you come to terms with what you just saw. She's your friend. She got your head straightened out and your ass back in gear after you found your Bro. Even her Class would be helpful; as a Seer she must have seen (smelled?) some nasty shit go down in a million other timelines. 

Well too bad. You are going to hide in the bowels of the meteor like a little child that poops hard in his baby ass diapers and you will attempt to apply one of your greatest coping techniques: denial. 

The room you've just zapped yourself into is cool, dark, and quiet. You have no idea which part of the Meteor you’re in and you don’t care. You close your eyes and, for a second, your mind is blissfully blank. Then it's like an old-timey projector starts up in the back of your skull and starts flashing images of blank eyes and black hair slick with blood. Your mind refuses to let you suppress what you've just seen. 

You hope, extremely fucking fervently, that Jade never has to see any of this. But the worst is knowing that she already has. Not alpha Jade, not your Jade; but this is a memory. In some timeline out there this actually happened to her. 

He did that to her. 

You did that to her. 

Your brain is completely unable to parse that thought and immediately spits out crap to make you feel better: Hey man, that was just some fakey dream shit. She's okay. You know full well that she is currently kicking back on a three year long cruise with John and the sprites and whole planets full of beings to keep her company. 

And Davesprite. 

But Davesprite's a good guy though, right? You met him, he had your back. He wanted to save John and Jade, not hurt them. 

But that's what you would have thought of any Dave out there, before. Weren't they all basically you, give or take a little doom? 

Welp, that's a thought that you want to kick right out of your head. Let's get back to the Reasons-Why-It-Could-Never-Happen portion of your freakout.

There are many things that you can say to comfort yourself right now. Chief among them is that Jade is a major badass. You never exactly thought that she was weak, but you did think that out of the four of you she needed protection the most. Hahahahaha, oh man were you ever wrong. You got that proven to you first hand when you saw Jack Noir's silhouette approaching fast from over the horizon. You witnessed her ferocity from a hundred different angles as you slipped in and out of time trying to get the jump on Noir. She moved like the feral thing she was; teeth bared and hair whipping around her, but her hands holding the barrel as steady as the earth. Her auto-Harley was almost as fast as a flash-step. You almost had a heart attack the first time she jumped in front of you, right in the path of Noir’s speeding sword. After you realized he wouldn't hurt her, it almost became like a dance with you and her. She was like your moving home base that you could dash back to if things got too hot. Sometimes you moved like you were attached to each other by invisible strings.

Until you’d gotten a magazine’s worth of bullets in your back. 

Okay, again let's get back on track. The point is that she can hold her own, period. The only reason she lost so quickly against the other you (holy fuck you still cannot believe that you saw that) was because he was hopped up on some murder-poison and had the ultimate element of surprise. Come on, you would never for a second think that John or Rose would stick a sword in your belly, so why should she think that about you? In a fair fight you know that she would give as good as she got. She's god tier now anyways so it doesn't even matter. Yeah. 

You are actually starting to calm down and are considering showing your face soon up on the tower when you hear it: 

"Now, what's got your thinkpan all up and bothered?"

The voice is raspy and soft from disuse and seemingly coming from everywhere at once. It feels like a snake uncoiling. You startle and summon your specibus to your hand in an instant and slip into a ready stance. 

There is no one in the room with you. 

Yes. Yes, this is exactly the time to really start going shithive maggots (in this case the troll descriptor seems the most appropriate). You have two more years to go on this   
faster-than-light troubled teen’s club and you have a feeling that abject insanity will help the time go by much faster. 

"Whoa there," it says, "Ain't no one here itching for a fight just now."

You try to pinpoint the voice (which obviously has to be Gamzee I mean come on). It's... coming from the wall? No, not the wall, a vent. There's a ventilation grate high on the wall, near the ceiling. You peer in it as best you can from your position on the floor but you don't see anything. It looks like it might be too small for someone to be crouching behind there anyways. But that doesn't mean you relax even a little. 

"Cool dude, a psychopathic alien clown has just told me to calm down. Welp, better put just down my sword and take a nap because I am safe as a goddamn baby in his mother's arms. Or better yet, I think I'll go take a shower with the door unlocked and all the lights off. The big man HASS the safe."

"Hey, just wanted to say that was one fuck of a show we all just saw. Reminded me of something."

"Cool. You can leave now."

"Bet you got some feelings stuck up in your chest over what we witnessed. Got some worry."

Christ, you've barely ever seen this guy and he's reading you like a book.

"Shut it, you greasepainted asshole. What we saw doesn't mean anything; it was some billion to one anomaly. Shit's not gonna go down like that ever with Jade because that broad is a powerhouse."

"Hey man, that may be so, but it looked to me like that girly had too much of a shine for you to see any of that coming. Probably wouldn't even up and fight back at first, probably wouldn't want to even try and hurt you."

Fuck fuck fuck fuck. This guy might actually be right. You hadn’t considered it from that angle. Jade's got just as many sweet powers as you (sweeter, maybe) but if something started going down between you two she would probably just try and restrain you at first. You bet that it wouldn’t be until things got especially viscous that she would take the kid gloves off. And by then it might be too late. 

You bring out your last card. 

"Let the record show that I have no idea why I am still talking to some crouching tiger hidden juggalo except that I’m apparently more bored than I ever thought I could be. But whatever, all this immensely disturbing talk is mad moot anyways because Jade is god-tier now. And spoiler alert: it's got some pretty big perks. Life related perks."

"So your witchy sis is not much of a hero then?"

_FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK_

Of course she would be heroic. You know her. It would barely even matter that she was god tier because all it would take would be to put someone else in danger and she would flip right into Hero of Space mode - and then she'd be vulnerable. And if some alternate you was willing to hurt Jade then he sure as fuck would be willing to put some sprite or troll in danger.

You flip back and forth on calling the other Dave "he" and "I" inside your head. Both are awful. Using the word "I" anywhere around the memory of what you saw go down in the dream bubble fills your stomach with the wriggling sensation of a thousand worms, while using "he" makes you feel like the most cowardly asshole who has ever tried to pass the buck that ever lived. Today you have learned that there is a part of you that would act like vicious scum towards a good friend ( _but don’t you wish she more than that?_ ), and just because you can't feel that part of yourself right now that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You saw the proof not a half an hour ago. Oh my god, he/you twisted the sword after it had already run her through just to make it hurt more oh my god _oh my god_.

Your eyes squeeze shut behind your shades. 

Gamzee's not saying anything, but you're sure if you could see his face (wherever he may be in those winding ventilation ducts) he would have such a shit-eating smile that it would impossible for even the most devoted pacifist to gaze upon it without wanting to throw a punch.

"Hey brother, would you believe that it is so easy? Just a swing and a crack and a squish? Isn't it miraculous, here we are all up and walking around and living when we're just wet paper sacks filled with color and pulp."

You say nothing.

"But I guess a shining white knight like you can save her."

Okay, this asshole is making the same mistake that you did and that's how you know he is hella wrong. You’re thankful that he finally has an argument you can counter. 

"Look, now you've just crossed back into becoming a troll of the regular douchebag internet variety if you think Jade needs someone to rescue her." 

"HahaHAHAhaha, my man, not the kind of saving I meant. What she needs, what we ALL need, is someone to rescue us. Wipe us clean. Here we are all running to a shiny new universe and dragging all this filth with us. Slit her throat and keep her a pure thing. Be her hero and put her out of her MOTHERFUCKING MISERY."

The last words are practically screamed. They echo all around you in the dark dripping with malice and euphoria. He’s quiet a moment before he continues, calm again.

"Your own timeline bro-self did it all right and natural. And let me tell you a little piece from my think-pan: I don't think he's the only one of you that did, neither." 

This could be a pile of bullshit. How the fuck would he know what went down in some alt timeline? You hope it's a mega-landfill full of bullshit because if you encounter another hurt Jade with your sword in her belly you don't know if you could take it. You might finally lose your hold on your metaphorical goat. 

"Shut up," is all you can say, which is the worst comeback you've had in a while.

"hahHAhahahaHAHAhaha"

You can't stand it anymore. The doorknob is hard to find in the dimness and your hand turns it the wrong way twice, but you manage it. You get the hell out of there, and that makes two rooms today that you've flounced out in a huff. Gamzee's laugh follows you out the doorway and down the hallway. You hear its echo long after it should have faded away. 

You head back to your room. You have to wander around a little before you are back to the familiar parts of the meteor. You are lucky enough to avoid seeing anyone in the halls, and there is no one waiting by your door when you make it back. Apparently they have decided to give you some space. 

Good. 

You strip off your shades and your shirt and lay face down on your alchemized retro waterbed and try to think of nothing. You fail. Something moves out of the corner of your eye and you almost have what must be your fifth heart-attack of the night before you realize that it only your reflection. You slowly drag your ass upright and walk over to your mirror. You take a look at yourself: red eyes, light hair, long fingers.

You turn the mirror around.


End file.
